Google Explores Its Own Beacons, But How Much Here-Ness Do We Want?

Apple stole a march on Google by capturing the Bluetooth LTE buzz with its iBeacon protocols last year. Forget that most proximity-aware implementations are more press release than reality right
now, the iBeacon seems to dominate mindshare, even as multiple techniques and technologies are managing machine-to-machine interactions. But Google seems ready to strike back with its own approach to
activating the here and now.

According to Android Police, the search giant is
planning to soon test a system called Nearby that will allow personal connections between your device and nearby people, locations and activated objects. It has been detected in unreleased versions of
Google Play, where people will have an opportunity to opt-in. Apparently, its machine-to-machine crosstalk will leverage a number of different protocols and sensors to establish presence and allow
interaction. To quote directly from the Google Play description:

“Nearby lets you connect, share, and do more with people, places, and things near you.

“When Nearby is
turned on for your account, Google can periodically turn on the mic, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and similar features on all your current and future devices. Google+ and other Google services need this access
to help you connect, share, and more.

When you turn on Nearby, you're also turning on Location History for your account and Location Reporting for this device. Google needs these services to
periodically store your location data for use by Nearby, other Google services, and more.”

The idea seems to be giving your device the ability to detect another Android-powered object,
but also to use things like the microphone to detect other activity in the space. Obviously, the first use case that comes to mind is Beacon-like interactions in a retail space. Using a combination of
signals, Nearby probably could locate you at shelf and aisle level in retail for seamless interactions and activations. It could also make in-house interactions more seamless for home automation. The
microphone functionality fascinates me, because it would seem to make the device not only proximity-aware but media-aware. Conceivably, it could let the device know what your are watching on TV or
listening to on the radio in order to synchronize mobile media or advertising.

The opt-in procedures here could be dizzying, however. Protecting privacy and pestering would likely require a
pretty high level of user profile management -- deciding what people, places and things you want to detect and be detected by. But this is an early indicator of what personal M2M reality looks like.
The world of connected objects and Internet of Things has the capacity to talk with one another in ways that are typically as promising as they are creepy.

The potential for an almost
superpowered “Here-Ness” comes to mind with these technologies. From as far back as I can recall in covering mobile media, the prospect of turning the world itself into a World Wide Web
has been an obvious endpoint to the technologies. At the very first OMMA Mobile back in 2007 we had a panel called “The Clickable World” that contemplated the first technologies like QR
codes that helped people activate moments and things to add a layer of digital media. The long promise of mobility has been to somehow knit together that massive digital media world we have built
online and the physical world and experience.

As cool as this is for retailers, perhaps TV advertisers and Google, it is unclear how much here-ness we want. How much do we want place and
proximity-hyper-activated?

Just as hyper-connectivity has led people to seek moments of unplugged-ness, a hyper-activated Internet of Things will require a prominent off switch.

We at Mahana (http://mahana.io) would like to see more parity of offerings between iOS and Android. Our clients have customers with both types of phones and it is going to be quite challenging as momentum continues to build.

Steve Smith is the Editorial Director, Events at MediaPost where he oversees all OMMA and Insider Summit event content. He is also the longtime Mobile Insider/MoBlog columnist for Mobile Marketing Daily. A recovering academic who taught media studies at Brown and University of Virginia, he spent the last decade as a digital media critic for numerous publications and as a digital strategy consultant. He also writes for Media Industry Newsletter and eContent magazine. Contact him here.